


The Old Thane

by jalendavi_lady



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Character Interpretation, Founders fic, Gen, Pre-Canon, Snakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-04
Updated: 2010-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-13 06:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/133947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jalendavi_lady/pseuds/jalendavi_lady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An alternate character interpretation of Salazar Slytherin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old piece I found sitting unposted on my hard drive.
> 
> The second chapter is a connected after-series piece that isn't quite enough to stand on its own.

Late Fall 1070 AD, Southern Britain

"Damn bastard Norman gits," he muttered under his breath.

All his trouble gaining his position, situating his family so that he could enjoy a fair amount of travel and try to set things up for the country's future, and those damn half-French invaders had to come take over his land.

From minor family of the back of even this nowhere to one of the thanes - a thane, by God's blood! - and now all he could do was wander his own damn halls while his granddaughter lay beside that usurping baron because the marriage was the only future she'd had. The only future the people had to hope for, either.

Of course the moment the unwanted child, so bright, so beautiful, so normal, had been wed, her father, uncles, and cousins had disappeared in the night.

And those idealists he'd left behind were going to spend their time training everyone they could find, rather than focusing on bloodlines that were solidly magical, where one generation could be assured of leading to generations to come. Where the legacy could go on, even if a centralized school fell, with them teaching the rest of the country in little pockets

He paced the room, still in his nightshirt.

If they hadn't left in abandonment of he and the girl, he'd have almost been unable to blame them for leaving, what with the way that priest was talking.

He ought to have followed, except that she would have been even more vulnerable and he would have never heard the end of it for the rest of his days.

He would never have been able to outlive his guilt.

And he had other concerns to see to: his people, all of them down to the sons of the men who searched the fen for what edible eels hid in the muck.

His people, and his responsibility, after long effort.

And what that long ago effort was costing him now!

Why couldn't that fieldhand-bred overmuscled idiot have been the one who got to deal with the Normans? He certainly damn well had the weaponry to have done something normal-like at the battle!

The lady of the book bower certainly hadn't raised more than a delicate eyebrow when she'd heard the first rumors of war. She was always like that. A little invasion wasn't going to change her tune, not until someone started burning books and unless her logic told her there was a hope she could change anything.

And Madam Diplomacy? Harold and William at the same table without someone dying? Sure. Like that could have happened.

 _Idealists._

There had been no honor in the battles, no logic in the deaths, and his people were lucky they could remain under new masters on their own ancestral lands.

War and occupation was no place for idealists, even idealists with blades.

Those three, any or all of them, would have died had they come south to the battles, even as magical as they were.

And much as he argued with and fumed at them, even that brash bastard, the thought of any of them cold on the ground made his own blood chill in this early morning air.

It certainly did not help that an adder had bit one of the younger peasant children last week, and he as the responsible member of the community that he actually was had slipped the boy's mother a cure.

And the adders wondered why he didn't want them in the parts of the fen his people were in most often. They wondered!

Granted, they usually weren't much of a risk to humans, but even that little bit was still too much of a risk.

" _Stupid boneheaded poisonteeth..._ "

" _Well, the death must fit somewhere in their heads._ " The tiny voice hissed from deep under the large bed that dominated the room. " _The thoughts had to go since the teeth could not._ "

" _I thought you were already sleeping for the winter, neighbor._ "

The old grass snake hissed, " _With your pacing, who could?_ "

Hosting a snake under his bed in a crack in the wall was the least he could offer in exchange for not having a rodent problem in his bedroom. The odor was enough to keep them out even while the reptiles of the fen were sleeping through the cold.

" _I am worried for my people. And yours, neighbor._ "

" _What have we to fear? We carry no death for your kind!_ "

" _These new softskins... They believe a scalyskin brought evil to the softskin world by talking to a softskin in false words. They would not think well of seeing you in a softskin dwelling, and I dare not think what thoughts would be born of learning we have such a warm agreement, neighbor._ "

An angry hiss.

" _Bad times ahead,_ " he confirmed very quietly. _"Not being poisonteeth will not save you. Not following dark paths will not save me."_

Silence as he continued pacing.

" _Neighbor! Footsteps!_ "

He lept back into bed, using the tiniest touch of his powers to make the candle go out. He sprawled out, as if in dream, and let a hand dangle over the edge of the bed to nearly touch the floor.

When he listened very very hard, he could hear whispered voices outside.

The Norman priest. A few of his most devoted friends and allies.

That boy... It had been a risk... A risk he had known might lead to this night.

The flick of a tongue against his palm. " _I smell the hunt._ "

" _Do not do anything to put my granddaughter in danger from them, neighbor._ "

More tiny snake-kisses. " _Understood, neighbor. Good neighbor. Best neighbor._ "

And he knew his roommate understood.

The door creaked open.

He barely opened one eye the slightest bit.

One of the older and stronger of the men had a knife already out in the open, and it was obvious from the blade that the plan was not to stab him in his sleep.

Of course. The Normans thought power could be bound in words and herbs alone. The fools.

The snake-kisses had not stopped. Not that they were truly kisses, but having a snake wish to smell one so intensely was about as close as snakes got to the concept.

He almost wished that prideful sword-toting... _ooh!_... would hear of this. But no, this was a sort of bravery his best enemy would never call such.

Best enemy.

That was what they were, each to the other, and he wondered for a moment if the other was as lost without a mildly - only mildly - friendly rival as he had been these past few years.

No matter. There was no way to know now, and his path had been set so that there was nothing different to do had he known. Besides leave his people and the girl defenseless, and he was skin and fur, not scale and fang.

He was a thane, or had been.

He closed his eye. He could hear fabric move as they surrounded him.

Hand in his hair, pulling him up. Someone grabbed his hands and held them together by the wrists behind his back.

Cold steel at his throat.

He let himself open his eyes.

"I always knew you were in league with the Devil, Salazar." The priest was a few feet in front of him. "All those rumors about you and your wife, before we arrived..."

"I'm not. But I know where you can find someone who is," he managed to whisper through the pressure at his throat.

The priest looked mildly surprised. "Where?"

"There's a mirror on the wall, you gi..."

* * *

He stayed still as a stone, curled up against the wall beneath the bed.

He smelled the hunt, the struggle. The vibrations of his neighbor's final jerks slowly faded from the floor.

 _Neighbor. Best neighbor._

His neighbor had tried to explain that softskins had a closer concept, but scalyskins had no word and no need for it.

The concept of words for individual beings also eluded him, like a too-quick frog. Once eggs hatched, they were independent beings, and mating pairs never stayed together.

And missing someone? Having rituals to remember someone? What use was that to a scalyskin?

So, these softskins were pack predators, even against their own? Another difference he would have to be mindful of, come the warm again.

He would have to tell the poisonteeth this, and that this pack was dangerous to those with scales.

They dragged the empty shell of his neighbor out of the room, and he finally loosened his coils.

But for now, he needed to settle for the cold. Let them think no one knew...

He slithered into the crack in the wall. Even if the softskins sealed this entrance as he slept, there was still the exit crack just outside the kitchens. And a dozen others.

Sleep, then the poisonteeth, then safety for them all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't read the end of Deathly Hallows, stop reading now. This chapter references major revelations about the series revealed in the chapters movie Part 2 will cover. If you have only seen Part 1 and not read the book, you will be spoiled if you read this chapter.
> 
> This is based in a plot bunny I had that just would not go away.

1 September 2012, Hogwarts Castle

"Dursley, Violet!"

She walked tentatively up to the stool.

It felt like everyone was staring at her. _It's just because of Great-Aunt Lily and Cousin Harry_ , she reminded herself. _The second Muggleborn in a family ought to get attention like this._

It didn't stop her shaking.

 _And I'll probably get Gryffindor, and be in with Teddy, anyway. And then probably with Jays next year, and Albie and Lilibit eventually._

Professor Longbottom plopped the hat down on her head. He'd be her Head of House, if she got Sorted Gryffindor.

" _Ah, another Evans. There's courage there, and a scholar's heart, but with your drive and particular determination I really think you belong in_ SLYTHERIN!"

Dead silence.

She felt like crawling under a rock and staying there until spring.

Professor Longbottom lifted the hat off her head and she stumbled down to the long table, halfway against her own will.

There was a small belated cheer, and a small group of second- and third-years moved a bit to make room for her. It took a moment to blink into belief the fact that they were the ones who had cheered.

Everyone - _everyone!_ \- knew Headmaster Snape had wanted Great-Aunt Lily Sorted Slytherin. And if she had been, well... the war could have ended quite differently.

Snape might have never been a Death Eater. He might not have died.

It was a slap in the face to the entire House... And she was Muggleborn, to boot...

"Welcome to Slytherin," a girl only a year older than she said from her right. "I'm Celeste Malfoy."

"And I'm her brother Deneb," a third-year introduced himself across the table.

"And we're his yearmates," said another girl. "I'm April Horton, and this is my brother."

He held out a hand. "I'm Jonathan."

She shook it.

The Sorting Hat had just Sorted a Finnigan girl into Ravenclaw when Jonathan leaned close.

"So, did it say why it Sorted you here?"

"Jonathan!" Celeste looked scandalized.

"It's okay," she whispered even though it wasn't. They all seemed to know it. After a long pause that lasted minutes, she admitted, "It said my ‘drive and particular determination'. Whatever that means."

Everyone else at the table was focusing on the Sorting of a Nott.

"Hmm." Deneb leaned back a little. "Drive sounds about right for a Slytherin. 'Particular determination'?"

Nott was Sorted Slytherin, to a roar of approval. Space was quickly found for him, up near the prefects.

"His father resisted joining the Dark Lord at the end of the war," Celeste whispered. "Led a student disruption during the final battle. And if no one's told you yet, the Dark Lord died in this room." She seemed to shiver.

Another few minutes passed

"I... There's something Grandmother said. Something Great-Aunt Lily wondered about, after Snape and she stopped being friends. Something..."

They all leaned close.

"There's a weird story in the Evans family, from just after Hastings. Something about a marriage deal where a family considered the most beautiful and intelligent daughter to be the least desirable. Great-Aunt thought she might have been a Squib. Her grandfather was a thane before the battle, and the only one in the family to stand by her. Grandmother calls him The Old Thane."

"So?"

"Well, I've been wondering, and the area they were in... I just sort of think it was the right time for the Founders to still be around. Maybe Slytherin knew The Old Thane. Maybe..."

"Maybe he'd be okay with a friend's descendant in his house, no matter how long the magical blood lay dormant," Celeste finished, smiling faintly and patting her shoulder.

"Yeah."

Fred Weasley was Sorted Gryffindor.

Headmistress McGonagall said a short speech Violet didn't pay much attention to.

And the Feast sprung into being on huge platters.

"Hey Horton," someone called out, "done scaring the other Muggleborn?"

"I'm not..."

April hauled him back down onto the bench.

"If he was trying," Violet said, loud enough for everyone, "then it didn't work. I'm not scared."

She looked at the House seal on Deneb's robes a few minutes later, while chewing a piece of turkey. There was something, _something_ , when she looked at it...

She turned her attention to her mashed potatoes.

She had seven years ahead of her to figure it out.

 _And to find out who The Old Thane_ really _was, and if Grandmother's story about his death could even possibly be true._


End file.
